Ms Helen Walsh:

I thank the Senator for his question. To go back on that, the Senator is dead right that getting into schools, building relationships with principals and seeing at front face is what the NCSE is all about. In this regard, our 140 front-line staff have spent the last two years building those relationships, speaking to SNAs within schools and speaking to teachers. I emphasise the role of the SNA in that team approach within a school. They are highly valued in that context, alongside the special education teacher and alongside the teacher. It is that collaborative approach that works, that children get the right intervention from the right professional at the right time and, as I said earlier, those needs change over time.

In relation to the role of the SENO, I was one. I was a teacher, and from a psychology background. The NCSE has lived and breathed SNA reviews for the past 20 years. Of course, there was a pause in 2020 in relation to that and we accept it.

The role of the SENO has not changed over time, but they perform different tasks in relation to the review. This year, we were able to get them out into over 1,017 schools to get to know those children, to get to know those teachers, to get as much feedback as they could and to gather that rich data on those varying needs. On the place of the child's independence, one should remember support comes with independence and we want to see children who are well adjusted and supported to become independent valued members of society just like their peers so they are not in a dependency state for ever. We accept that there are very complex children out there who will always continue to need SNA supports and that is a given. The role of the SENO is to try to gather all of that information and to represent the profile of that school. They are humans themselves who care as much about children, and particular children with disability, as the professionals who are working with the children who care about disability. They want to get it right and they do get it right, and they bring it back to our national teams. We treat this process with absolute due diligence. We do not let a detail of that school go missing. We do not let a detail of practice go missing. We make sure that we get the full lens on the child in the context of the school and if there are exceptional circumstances within that school, that is all taken into account.

To address earlier questions in relation to the circular itself, that circular is maybe one of the best and one of the worst interpreted and understood circulars. It allows for so much of children's care needs to be represented and taken into account. That is everything from what was described, from the child who needs to leave the class to the child who needs to stay. We always reference the physical mobility but it is way broader than that. If a child has communication needs, that is recognised within that circular. It actually captures more than is understood. There is an understanding that it only captures the physical piece. It does way more than that and our SENOs capture that as accurately as they can.

To fully answer the Senator's question, there are approximately 20 steps to that SNA process and an operational governance framework right on top of it. It goes right back into teams who are senior disability experts who, themselves, can make a decision and see, look at that data, analyse it and make sure we got it right. If we did not get it right, there are different people to have a look at that appeal, and if we did not get the process right, there are independent professionals outside of the NCSE who will tell us we did not get it right.

It is a holistic approach. We have to take into account the child's independence alongside their need, their changing needs over time, and their right to their teacher - their right to the right professionals just like every other child within the school context.